The Forbidden Rose (47 page)

“It’ll be soon now, Adrian. We’ll get free. Wait.”

The mindless optimism of the English. Who could comprehend it? Had not her own mother told her they were all mad?

It was a tidy small prison Leblanc kept. So few loose stones. It took a while before the cosh was heavy enough. She tied the end of the stocking and tucked it into the pocket hidden beneath her skirt. Then she continued to explore the walls, finding nothing at all interesting. There is not so much to discover about rooms that are used as prisons. This one had been a wine cellar before the Revolution. It still smelled of old wood and good wine as well as less wholesome things. Halfway around the cell she came to where the Englishmen were chained, so she stopped to let her hands have a look at them as well.

The one who lay upon the ground was young, younger than she was. Seventeen? Eighteen? He had the body of an acrobat, one of those slight, tightly constructed people. He had been wounded. She could smell the gunpowder on his clothes and the wound going bad. She would wager money there was metal still inside him. When she ran her fingers across his face, his lips were dry and cracked, and he was burning hot. High fever.

They had chained him to the wall with an excellent chain, but a large, old-fashioned padlock. That would have to be picked if they were to escape. She searched his boots and the seams of his clothing, just in case Leblanc’s men had missed some small, useful object. There was nothing at all, naturally, but one must always check.

“Nice . . .” he murmured when she ran her hands over him. “Later, sweetheart. Too tired . . .” Not so young a boy then. He spoke in English. There might be an innocent reason for an English to be in France, in these days when their countries were not exactly at war, but somehow she was sure Leblanc spoke truly. This was a spy. “So tired.” Then he said clearly, “Tell Lazarus I won’t do that anymore. Never. Tell him.”

“We shall speak of it,” she said softly, “later,” which was a promise hard to fulfill, since she did not expect to have so very many laters. Though perhaps a few more than this boy.

He struggled to sit up. “Queen’s Knight Three. I have to go. They’re waiting for me to deliver the Red Knight.” He was speaking what he should not, almost certainly, and he would injure himself, thrashing about. She pushed him gently back down.

Strong arms intervened. “Quiet. That’s all done.” The other man held the boy, muffling his words.

He need not have worried. She was no longer interested in such secrets. In truth, she would as soon not learn them.

“Tell the others.”

“I will. Everyone got away safe. Rest now.”

The boy had knocked over the water jug, struggling. Her hands found it, rolled on its side, empty. It was perfectly dry inside. The thought of water stabbed sour pinpricks in her mouth. She was so thirsty.

Nothing is worse than thirst. Not hunger. Not even pain. Maybe it was as well there was no water to tempt her. Perhaps she would have become an animal and stolen from these men, who suffered more than she did. It was better not to know how low she could have fallen. “When was the last time they gave you water?”

“Two days ago.”

“You have not much longer to wait, then. Leblanc will keep me alive for a while, in the hopes I may be useful to him. And to play with.”
In the end, he will kill me. Even when I give him the Albion plans—every word, every map, every list—he will still kill me. I know what he did in Bruges. He cannot let me live.

“His habits are known.”

He was large, the English spy of the deep voice and iron sternness. She sensed a huge presence even before she touched him. Her hands brought her more details. The big man had folded his coat under the boy, accepting another measure of discomfort to keep his friend off the cold floor. It was a very British courage, that small act. She felt his fierce, protective concentration surrounding the boy, as if force of will alone were enough to hold life in him. It would be a brave man indeed who dared to die when this man had forbidden it.

She reached tentatively and discovered soft linen and long, sinewy courses of muscle down his chest and then, where his shirt lay open at the neck, a disconcerting resilience of masculine skin. She would have pulled away, but his hand came to cover hers, pressing it down over his heart. She felt the beat under her palm, startling and alive. Such power and strength.

He said, “I know what Leblanc does to women. I’m sorry you’ve fallen into his hands. Believe that.”

“Me, I am also extremely sorry.” This one was determined to be nice to her, was he not? She took her hand back. She would free him, if she could, and then they would see exactly how delightful he was. “These locks,” she jiggled his manacle, “are very clumsy. One twiddle, and I could get them off. You do not have a small length of wire about you, do you?”

She could hear the smile in his voice. “What do you think?”

“I do not expect it to be so simple. Life is not, in my experience.”

“Mine also. Did Leblanc hurt you?”

“Not so much.”

He touched her throat where she was sore and bruised. “No woman should fall into Leblanc’s hands. We’ll get out of here. There’s some way out. We’ll find it.” He gripped her shoulder, heavy and reassuring.

She should get up and search the cell. But somehow she found herself just sitting next to him, resting. Her breath trickled out of her. Some of the fear that had companioned her for weeks drained away, too. How long had it been since anyone had offered her comfort? How strange to find it here, in this fearful place, at the hands of an enemy.

After what seemed a long time, she roused herself. “There is another problem. Your friend cannot walk from here, even if I get him free of the chain.”

“He’ll make it. Better men than Leblanc have tried to kill him.” Not everyone would have heard the anguish beneath the surface of that voice, but she did. They both knew this Adrian was dying. In a dozen hours, in at most another day, his wound and thirst and the damp chill of the stones would finish him off.

The boy spoke up in a thin thread of polished Gascon French. “It is . . . one small bullet hole. A nothing.” He was very weak, very gallant. “It’s the . . . infernal boredom . . . I can’t stand.”

“If we only had a deck of cards,” the big man said.

“I’ll bring some . . . next time.”

They would have made good Frenchmen, these two. It was a pity Leblanc would soon take her from this cell. One could find worse companions for the long journey into the dark. At least the two of them would be together when they died. She would be wholly alone.

But it was better not to speculate upon how Leblanc would break her to his will and kill her, which could only lead to melancholy. It was time to slide from beneath the touch of this English spy and be busy again. She could not sit forever, hoping courage would seep out of his skin and into her.

She stood, and immediately felt cold. It was as if she had left a warm and accustomed shelter when she left the man’s side. That was most silly. This was no shelter, and he did not like her much despite the soft voice he used. What lay between them was an untrusting vigilance one might have carved slices of.

Perhaps he knew who she was. Or perhaps he was one of those earnest men who go about spying in total seriousness. He would die for his country in a straightforward English fashion in this musty place and hate her because she was French. To see the world so simply was undoubtedly an English trait.

So be it. As it happened, she was not an amicable friend of big English spies. A French trait, doubtless.

She shrugged, which he would not see, and began working her way around the rest of the cell, inspecting the floor and every inch of the wall as high as she could reach. “In your time here, has Henri Bréval visited the cell?”

“He came twice with Leblanc, once alone, asking questions.”

“He has the key? He himself? That is good then.”

“You think so?”

“I have some hopes of Henri.” There was not a rusted nail, not a shard of glass. There was nothing useful anywhere. She must place her hope in Henri’s stupidity, which was nearly limitless. “If Fouché is indeed upstairs drinking wine and playing cards, Leblanc will not leave his side. One does not neglect the head of the Secret Police to disport oneself with a woman. But Henri, who takes note of him? He may seize the moment. He wishes to use me, you understand, and he has had no chance yet.”

“I see.” They were most noncommittal words.

Was it possible he believed she would welcome Henri? What dreadful taste he thought she had. “Leblanc does not let many people know about this room. It is very secret what he does here.”

“So Henri may come sneaking down alone. You plan to take him.” He said it calmly, as if it were not remarkable that she should attack a man like Henri Bréval. She was almost certain he knew what she was.

“I can’t help you,” the chain that bound him rattled, “unless you get him close.”

“Henri is not so stupid. Not quite. But I have a small plan.”

“Then all I can do is wish you well.”

He seemed a man with an excellent grasp of essentials. He would be useful to her if she could get his chains off. That she would accomplish once those pigs became like the proverb and grew wings and went flying.

Exploring the cell further, she stubbed her toe upon a table, empty of even a spoon. There were also chairs, which presented more opportunity. She was working at the pegs that held a chair together when she heard footsteps.

“We have a visitor,” the big English said.

“I hear.” One man descended the steps into the cellar. Henri. It must be Henri. She set the chair upright, out of her way, and drew her cosh into her hand and turned toward the sound of footsteps. A shudder ran along her spine, but it was only the cold of the room. It was not fear. She could not afford to be afraid. “It is one man. Alone.”

“Leblanc or Henri, do you think?”

“It is Henri. He walks more heavily. Now you will shut up quietly and not distract me.” She prayed it was Henri. Not Leblanc. She had no chance against Leblanc.

The Englishman was perfectly still, but he charged the air with a hungry, controlled rage. It was as if she had a wolf chained to that wall behind her. His presence tugged and tugged at her attention when it was desperately important to keep her mind on Henri.

Henri. She licked her lips and grimly concentrated on Henri, an unpleasant subject, but one of great immediacy. There were twenty steps on the small curved staircase that led from kitchen to cellar. She counted the last of them, footstep by footstep. Then he was in the corridor that led to the cell.

Henri had always thought her reputation inflated. When he had brought her the long way to Paris to turn her over to Leblanc, she had played the spineless fool for him, begging humbly for food and water, stumbling, making him feel powerful. She was so diminished in her darkness he thought her completely harmless. He had become contemptuous.

Let him come just a little close, and he would discover how harmless she was. Most surely he would.

She knew the honey to trap him. She would portray for him the Silly Young Harlot. It was an old favorite role of hers. She had acted it a hundred times.

She licked her lips and let them pout, open and loose. What else? She pulled strands of hair down around her face. Her dress was already torn at the neckline. She found the spot and ripped the tear wider. Good. He would see only that bare skin. She could hold a dozen coshes and he would never notice.

Quickly. Quickly. He was coming closer. She took another deep breath and let the role close around her like a familiar garment. She became the Harlot. Yielding, easy to daunt, out of her depth in this game of intrigue and lies. Henri liked victims. She would set the most perfect victim before him and hope he took the bait.

Hid beneath layer upon layer of soft and foolish Harlot, she waited. Her fist, holding the cosh, never wavered. She would not allow herself to be afraid. It was another role she had crafted; the Brave Spy. She had played this one so long it fit like her skin.

Probably, at the center of her being, under all the pretense, the real Annique was a quivering mouse. She would not go prying in there and find out.

 

 

THE grilled window in the door glowed ghostly pale, then brightened as a lantern came closer. Grey could see again. The details of his cell emerged. Rough blocks of stone, a table, two chairs. And the girl.

She faced the door, stiff and silent and totally intent upon the man out in the corridor. Not a move out of her. Not the twitch of a fingernail. Her eyes, set in deep smudges of exhaustion, were half-closed and unfocused. She didn’t once glance in his direction.

He watched her draw a deep breath, never taking her attention from that small barred window in the door. Her lips shaped words silently, praying or talking to herself. Maybe cursing. Again, she combed her fingers through her hair in staccato, purposeful, elegant flicks that left wild elflocks hanging across her face.

She was totally feminine in every movement, indefinably French. With her coloring—black hair, pale skin, eyes of that dark indigo blue—she had to be pure Celt. She’d be from the west of France. Brittany, maybe. Annique was a Breton name. She carried the magic of the Celt in her, used it to weave that fascination the great courtesans created. Even as he watched, she licked her lips again and wriggled deliberately, sensually. A man couldn’t look away.

She’d torn her own dress. The curve of her breast showed white against the dark fabric—a whore, bringing out her wares. She was a whore, a liar, and a killer . . . and his life depended on her. “Good luck,” he whispered.

She didn’t turn. She gave one quick, dismissive shake of her head. “Be still. You are not part of this.”

That was the final twist of the knife. He was helpless. He measured out his twenty inches of chain, picturing just how far a fast kick could reach. But Henri wasn’t going to wander that close. She’d have to subdue Henri Bréval on her own, without even a toothpick to fight with.